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(Luxembourg, 22 March 2024) – This week, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) in Cluj-Napoca (Romania) submitted a plea agreement to the Iași Tribunal, where a public official has pleaded guilty to aiding a criminal scheme to defraud funds intended to promote employment, with an estimated damage of €1.6 million.
Between 2019 and 2021, the public official, who worked for the Bacău County Employment Agency, supported an organised crime group under investigation, by accepting the submission of falsified documents, issuing forged certificates attesting that the beneficiaries were unemployed, and assigning them as apprentices to companies controlled by the main suspects, in order to justify the payment of EU funds.
According to the investigation, the organised crime group had set up seven fictitious companies, in order to fraudulently obtain EU and national subsidies, aimed at helping unemployed people to improve their skills and job prospects. The suspects are believed to have hired 197 people under a fraudulent scheme, thus defrauding the EU and national budgets of a total of €1.67 million (85% pertaining to the budget of the European Union and 15% to Romania’s national budget). According to the investigation, the individuals were either already employed by one of the companies involved, and had formally terminated their employment contract in order to be hired again, or did not fulfil the conditions to be considered apprentices. In addition, according to the investigation, the required training never took place.
Based on the evidence, the criminal ring used several public officials in order to commit the fraud. This is the first defendant brought to court in this investigation. It is understood that the activities of the public official contributed to the fraudulent acquisition of a total of €208 000 – mainly from non-reimbursable EU funds, under the Operational Programme Human Capital 2014-2020. He has agreed to the charges brought against him, including forgery and subsidy fraud, and to the sentence imposed: two years and ten months’ imprisonment, the execution of which shall be suspended under supervision for a period of three years. In addition, he will be barred from holding a function involving the exercise of state authority for a period of three years.
Earlier in this investigation, the police seized two properties (one apartment and one lot of land), in order to recover the damage to the EU budget and any judicial expenses.
All persons concerned are presumed to be innocent until proven guilty in the competent Romanian courts of law.
The EPPO is the independent public prosecution office of the European Union. It is responsible for investigating, prosecuting and bringing to judgment crimes against the financial interests of the EU.